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This latest work features protagonists chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. At the same time, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Kraus began as an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to refined literature of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.

Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par